The Quesnel Quilters Guild is displaying Bits and Pieces of its handcrafted art for a month.
The Guild is having an art exhibit, called the Bits & Pieces Exhibition, at the Quesnel Art Gallery, in the Quesnel Recreation Centre on North Star Road.
The exhibit is the first art display the Guild has had in five years, when COVID restrictions made it hard to put one together.
The year’s exhibit is the first time the Quilters’ Guild and the Quesnel Art Gallery have collaborated. This year’s exhibit has about 30 pieces of Quilted art, ranging from queen and king-sized bedspreads to smaller table runners, placemats, and pillows, all the way down to quilted cards. There is even a pair of quilted sneakers.
Compared to the Guild’s earlier exhibits, Judy Crannis, the Guild’s longest-serving member and coordinator of the event, says the 30 pieces on display are much smaller than the exhibits in the past.
“We’re an aging population of women now, and we don’t have the ability to climb ladders and hang 300 plus quilts in a two-storey building,” Crannis says. “Working with the Art Gallery was new for us, because we had done everything totally on our own prior. So, it was a bit different that what we were used to, and we’re pleased with what they did.”
The Quesnel Quilters Guild has been running for 40 years in the community. Donating quilts to many local communities and associations.
Wyn McDevitt, the president of the Quilters Guild, says the Guild has been making ‘comfort quilts’ for the RCMP’s Victims Assistance program for 30 years. Providing quilts to children and adolesences could be “wrapped in a quilt and be comforted” while they’re on the side of the road.
McDevitt said since the first time comfort quilts were brought forward as an idea, the guild members “jumped in to do it.” Now the Guild makes comfort quilts for cancer patients, hospice, palliative care, and more communites in Quesnel and the Cariboo.
“It’s funny because I probably didn’t think of it as art for many years. I just enjoy doing it,” says McDevitt. “But when you think about, you take a big piece of fabric and you cut it up into a bunch of pieces and you sew it together and put it together in a pattern, it is a piece of art. There’s many styles of wall hangings that are art.”
The Bits & Pieces Exhibition opened with a gala last night. The exhibit runs until June 12th, with some creative pieces on display showing many different quilting techniques. There are even some items available to purchase.
All of which are made with love and care, and some, even the pillows, are the quilters’ favourite items.
“Each quilt is made and received special because of the care in each stitch,” said Wyn McDevitt in her opening speech.
“A blanket warms the skin; however, a quilt warms the soul.”
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